Getting rid of a gear driven cam

I am interested in buying a 1970 Charger. According to the seller, the vehicle originally had 383 engine and has since been restored and modified with a 426 wedge. It also has a gear driven cam. I was able to watch a YouTube clip of the Charger and it has a subtle "high pitch" whine because of the gear driven cam. Therefore, if I buy this, I would like to switch out the cam with the chain driven cam. But I have no idea what that would entail. Can anybody tell me how involved a job this is? Is this an easy switch or is this something that could be very costly? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

many are probably floating idler gear types.. there are rigid timing cover mounted idler gear sets.. there may be several things that are done to the front of the block.. that you may need to compensate for..

before you or anybody takes the gear drive out.. please spend the time and money on the few tools to check the cam opening and closing degrees verses the crankshaft position.. this requires pulling the pulleys and the water pump.. but you might be able to do it a different way.. why... so you don't end up with bent valves.. from valve piston clearance issues.. the valves can open faster than the pistons start to move down the bore and if you get the cam timing off.. you can have a meeting that will cost you a LOT of money.. a degree or two off can really effect power settings..

would you like to read some articles on degreeing cams?? so you can see what is needed to reverse engineer the cam timing before you tear it down..??

cam timing has to do with the angle relationship with the crank.. nothing to do with spark timing.

you may also want to find out how much compression the engine has.. using a compression gauge..

the gear drive sounds are in the ears of many people almost expected from a real HOT charger.. a lot of mopars and others have racked up a lot of miles with gear drives..

the cam can stay and be degreed in with a 3 bolt top sprocket timing set without taking off the heads. doing a compression test and looking at the cam for a grind number and wear is always a good idea.